How should airlines deal with kids with nut allergies?

Some 1.4 percent of all kids in the United States are allergic to peanuts. (Getty)

An increasing number of children have nut allergies. In the most severe cases, inhaling the smallest bit of nut dust can send a child into anaphylactic shock, which can be fatal unless a a dose of adrenaline is given. Many schools have banned nuts from their lunchrooms, but what about airlines? Should carriers ban nuts from their flights to protect these children? A recent story in the news brings up this question.

An Irish family whose 4-year-old girl had a severe reaction after eating a cashew on a trans-Atlantic flight says United Airlines rejected their request to ban nuts nuts on their return flight. A flight attendant told the parents that United isn’t a “nut-free airline” and were escorted off the plane.

The child’s mother, who isn’t releasing her name to the press, told the Irish Independent that her daughter went into anaphylactic shock after eating a cashew on a flight from Dublin to New Jersey on August 5.

News reports seem to indicate that the family was sitting in first-class where they were served a bowl of mixed nuts and another of cashews. The preschooler has no history with nut allergies and had never experienced a reaction so the mother didn’t stop her daughter from dipping her hand into the bowl.

“About two hours out over the Atlantic they served a small bowl of cashew nuts and another mix of nuts,” the mom told the Independent. “She took one cashew nut and within 30 seconds to a minute, her face blew up and she broke out in hives all over her body. She couldn’t breathe properly either.

“They put out a call for medical personnel and thankfully there happened to be an allergy specialist from Houston, Texas, on board the flight. She came to the front and gave her the adrenaline from a vial.”

The flight returned to Dublin where the girl was rushed to the hospital. By the next morning, the child had recovered and the family boarded a United flight to Newark, N.J., and the airline agreed to not serve any nuts on that flight.

When the family boarded their return flight from Newark to Dublin they received a different reaction from the airline. A United employee told them nuts are a part of the in-flight service and said they didn’t advertise themselves as a nut-free airline.

The family was told to get off the flight and were put up in a hotel for the night. The next day the family boarded a different flight on which attendants agreed to not serve nuts.

This is a familiar story for families of children with severe nut allergies as airline policies addressing allergies are inconsistent. Airlines aren’t legally required to ban nuts from flights and so “decisions are left to the discretion of the individual flight crew,” according to The New York Times. Sometimes a crew is willing to meet a family’s request; other times not.

Many airlines, including United and American, no longer serve packages of peanuts, but bowls of warm nuts are still often offered in first-class. Passengers bringing their own nut products onto a flight are also an issue for children who react to nut dust. Sometimes flight attendants agree to ask passengers to not open any nut-based products they’ve carried onto the plane, but people don’t always listen.

Earlier this month, a 4-year-old named Fae Platten went into shock and lost consciousness on a flight when a passenger sitting four rows away opened a package of nuts, despite warnings not to. At the start of the Ryan Air flight from Tenerife in the Spanish Canary Islands, flight attendants announced that a child with severe allergies was on board and alerted passengers that no nuts would be sold on the plane and asked them to not open any packages of food containing nuts.

One man didn’t comply, and 20 minutes into the flight Fae’s face started to itch. Blisters covered her lips and her tongue swelled. Soon the girl breathing stopped and a passenger with medical experience used an adrenaline auto-injector pen Fae’s mother was carrying to revive the little girl.

“It was a very lucky escape,” Katy Platten, the girl’s mother, told the Daily Mail. “It could have been a tragedy: Fae’s Jext pen saved her life and brought her out of anaphylaxis.”

Once Ryanair crew were informed of this customer’s allergy, a public address was made. As stated on our website, and advised to customers on board, Ryanair cannot guarantee a peanut free aircraft as other customers may bring their own peanut products on board.

The passenger in question who caused this unfortunate incident has now been banned from flying with Ryanair for two years. Ryanair is delighted to hear that the little girl is making a good recovery.

The United States Department of Transportation tried to introduce a law banning nuts on planes in 2010, but according to The New York Times, “laws prohibit the agency from doing so without a peer-reviewed scientific study showing severe allergic reaction to small airborne peanut particles.”

Lawmakers are continuing to introduce legislation. Last year, the New Jersey Senate passed Resolution 124 urging airlines to enact policies concerning peanuts on flights. The resolution calls for all airlines to make announcements about passengers with allergies and to create buffer zones creating a buffer zone in which no nuts can be consume at least one row in front and one row behind the row where the allergic passenger is seate.